Platforms for the transport of vehicles are widely known and used, especially for the transport of vehicles by car and railway. These platforms, being part of a truck or as independent platforms, are provided with structures intended for securely transporting the greatest number of vehicles possible following a one or double-deck design.
These are platforms for the purpose set forth above which use a double-deck design being hydraulically actuated which, in some cases, can be further divided into several parts, so as to have a flexible configuration capable of carrying cars and cargo on the same truck. In this regard, the documents EP0233004A2 and CN203497448U can be mentioned. In this type of devices the platform is not used at its most regarding space, the cars do not tilt and a very big space must be left among cars from different decks since there is a separation deck in between. The configuration and devices disclosed, on the other hand, do not leave room for the side-loading of the truck.
It is also known platforms using a double-deck design or a set of lateral ramps which as well as being hydraulically elevated and lowered, are tilted into sections, also hydraulically. U.S. Pat. No. 4,992,013 and CN201040502Y can be cited as background. The drawbacks are similar to those from the previous case, although less marked. The space in the lorry is not used at its most capacity, and a space has to be left in the middle of the separation deck or a ramp at the wheel zone. As in the previous case, there is no room for the side-loading of the platform.
Lastly, platforms can be cited which use mechanisms that lift each car axle independently, as it is described in CN101318586A, RU2346873C2, CN1095024A and CN2010683031. In this way, a better use of the space is reached by approximating and tilting cars as desired and bringing cars nearer to each other, since the roof top of a car can be nearer the floor of the car being on top without having a separation deck or ramp in between hindering this maximum proximity. This configuration does not leave room for side-loading of the platform and loses load width in many areas of the truck, thus losing cargo capacity when using it as freight transport. The means being used are not easily retractable, so many faults and damage would be produced in said mechanisms when the truck is used for cargo transport. Furthermore, it is not possible to have a double elevator, since the different elevators cannot be interspersed by each axle, so load capacity is lost. It does not allow using the space on top of the truck cabin and also, the feature of independent elevation per axle results in a little robust structure compared to that used in the present invention.